Thursday, February 24, 2005

I guess it wasn't the straw after all.

Congratulate me. I ordered windshield wipers for my car.

Okay, maybe that doesn't sound that important to you, but here's why it's important.

I remember buying the wrong kind of wipers once, long ago, in another lifetime, when I was married (and my dumb-ass ex-husband obviously didn't know jack about wipers either, or we wouldn't have brought the wrong ones). So I have a vague notion that there are "right" and "wrong" wipers for my car. But I've never actually had to change them myself. Once in a while when I get my oil changed, or my belts checked, or some other routine work on my car, the guy in the shop says that I need new wipers, and that he would be happy to change them for me. I don't even have to bat my eyelashes.

Well the last time they changed my wipers, when I got my car inspected in December, they gave me the CRAPPIEST wipers I have ever seen in my life! They're already worn down. So obviously, I need to take care of this, and I can't always trust the guy in the shop to give me the best wiper bang for my buck. Which means I need to know at least a tiny bit about what I'm trying to do.

Unfortunately, though I have needed new wipers for several weeks at least, I have had a mental block to going and figuring this out for myself. I do everything for myself. I pay my own rent. I get myself up in the morning. I make my own meals. I plan my own trips to Brazil. I know this all sounds just dandy, and mostly it is, because I'm pretty self-sufficient and in general I prefer the way I do things to the way anyone else would do them for me. But every once and a while I'll encounter something I just DON'T want to do for myself. Windshield wipers were on that list, until today. Until I remembered that I'm an independent sort of girl and fending for myself when it comes to windshield wipers is not a big deal.

So I realized there were several ways I could take care of my wipers. I could go to a car part store and ask the salesperson for help and buy the right blades and figure out how to put them on in the parking lot. I could go bat my eyelashes at the corner gas station and make sure they give me the good blades. But I live in New York City and I work in Connecticut. While I'm sure I pass hundreds of purveyors of fine wiper blades on my way to and from work (fifty miles each way), I don't have time to go browsing for wiper blades.

So I did what any red-blooded, independent woman would do: I shopped online.

And there you have it. I found out that my driver's side wiper is 20 inches long and my passenger side wiper is 18 inches long (or is it the other way around? Well I'll worry about that when it comes time to put them on). I ordered silicone wipers guarenteed for five years (which means I won't have to do this again for a while!). And I found a brand that makes colored wipers . . . although I got grey to match my silver car instead of red or yellow or green. If they had pink, make no mistake, I would have gotten pink.

I'm hoping that I will see things a little more clearly.

And I learned that I probably CAN take care of everything I need. Even if I don't want to.

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